There are various types of swimming paddles with diverse features and properties for use in pools and in the open water, by competitive athletes, long distance swimmers, surfers, medical rehabilitation patients, and others. Swimming hand accessories are typically used in fitness swimming or in performance training for competitive swimming sports. Such swimming hand accessories can add resistance to a swimmer's hand strokes and thereby provide the strength training that would ultimately allow a swimmer to swim faster and for longer than without the paddles.
Swimming paddles are primarily designed to increase the surface area of a swimmer's hand in order to add more propulsion force that would allow a swimmer to swim faster. Maintaining a higher speed of swimming generally requires more work and sustained exertion of energy from a swimmer, and thus can help build a swimmer's strength. For example, a swimmer attempting to swim at the same high speed without the paddles would tire out faster and be unable to maintain that pace for a long period of time, and thus be unable to build the same amount of muscle as when using the paddles. Thus, while many swimming paddles cause a swimmer to swim faster when in use, they provide secondary benefits in gradual strength training. However, improvements can be made to conventional swimming paddles that, for example, are designed with the primary purpose of increasing swimming speeds, rather than maximizing the resistance load to the swimmer's stroke.
In general, two types of swimming hand accessories are known in the art for the purpose of strength training, increasing speed or improving other aspects of swimming. One type includes webbed gloves or finger webs that attach to some or all of the fingers of the hand, and they aid in swimming by spanning the areas between the fingers to increase the overall surface area at the hands and thus help propel more water. A webbed glove is most effective when the fingers are outstretched so that the increased surface area of the material between the outstretched fingers can propel more water. However, a webbed glove is typically formed by a flexible webbing material that generally conforms to the natural movement of the hands. Thus, there is little rigidity in the glove that can keep the fingers outstretched and prevent the fingers from their natural tendency to come to rest in an unstretched position.
The other main type of swimming hand accessory that overcomes the problem of the webbed glove is a rigid swimming paddle. The rigid body of such a swimming paddle can help increase water displacement and thereby the strength and power required of each swimming stroke. Swimming paddles are formed in a variety of sizes, some that are barely larger than a user's hand, and others that are significantly larger than a user's hand to further increase resistance and strength training. Just as various swimming fins may be worn on a swimmer's feet to increase their effective surface area and add resistance to a swimmer's kick, swimming paddles worn at the hands can also add resistance to a swimmer's stroke and therefore increase the strength of a swimmer's stroke and enhance endurance. Swimming paddles can improve the strength of the upper body in general, and not just the arms. In addition, the additional resistance caused by the paddles can delay early recovery from a stroke, and instead train a swimmer to properly follow through at the end of each stroke before starting a new stroke. Swimming paddles can also facilitate proper hip turning in free style, because if the hips are not turned appropriately, the paddles can hit the thighs.
Existing swimming paddles, however, present a variety of other problems. For example, some conventional swimming paddles are attached to the hands by a strap that is tied by various kinds of knots or securing means, that may be troublesome to adjust or that tend to get loose or unfastened. Some of the straps of conventional swimming paddles are made of materials such as Velcro, which is hard to securely tighten on the hands and is also uncomfortable or irritating to the skin. Moreover, there is often a lot of stress on the strap of conventional swimming paddles, which can cause discomfort or pain to a swimmer and even cause rashes or blisters to form at the wrist or fingers.
Thus, there is a need to address these and other problems to improve swimming paddles as a training accessory for fitness and performance swimming, for the purpose of building the strength that can enable a swimmer to swim faster and for longer periods of time when not using the paddles.